The present invention relates to apparatus for conveying printed items such as newspapers, periodicals and paperbacks and more particularly for individually feeding them from stacks.
Printed products not sold by retailers have to be returned to the wholesaler and individually counted in order to check the refund due to the retailers. This counting of each separate item of printed matter is a tedious, involved operation, not only because of the large number but also because of the variety of differently priced newspapers or the like. To simplify this activity a reading device has been developed which is able to recognise the publications placed thereon on the basis of their title pages after it has been suitably programmed and the images of such pages have been stored in it. The data output from this reader is then automatically processed, this involving operations such as the addition of the prices of the items of printed matter and the crediting of the respective amounts to the separate retailers. However, the need to place every item on the reader separately represents a substantial amount of hand labor causing fatigue and involving high hourly wage rates, since for efficient performance of the operation a large workforce is required.